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Chicago Blackhawks Midseason Review: When Can We Truly Evaluate Head Coach Luke Richardson?

By Todd Welter |
/ Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
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Instead of trying to fix the impotent offense over the All-Star break, Chicago Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson is sipping wine somewhere in Napa Valley.

With Connor Bedard on injured reserve probably through the rest of this month and a roster ravaged by injuries, who can blame him?

You see the hardcore take would be how could a head coach with a team sitting at the bottom of the NHL standings and in the middle of a 20-game road losing streak want to take in the best red and white wine Napa has to offer during the All-Star break?

The realistic take is the season was lost the moment Taylor Hall went down for the season, Corey Perry was released because of a workplace issue, and almost the entire blue line was on injured reserve in December. Oh, and then almost the entire forward group was on IR in January.

So go and enjoy some reds and exercise in Napa, Luke.

We also need to remember Richardson has been given rosters designed to lose on purpose.

Last year the goal was to tank for Connor Bedard with the hope the lottery odds would be in the team's favor.

Even with Bedard this season, the roster was constructed in a way that it had fringe hopes of making the playoffs. Realistically, even if it was fully healthy, the Blackhawks would still be in the NHL Draft Lottery conversation more than the playoff talk.

This team was filled with third and fourth-line players on short-term deals while the prospects developed their games at the AHL, college, or junior level. Some young players were also sprinkled in on the NHL team and they were being asked to play major roles.

That is going to add up to a try-hard team, but if there is not enough elite talent, then trying hard can only carry you so far.

That is why we are still at a point where we cannot evaluate Luke Richardson.

The old saying goes you are what your record says you are, but that saying blocks any context. Richardson's record is awful, but the context states his record is supposed to be bad.

This does not mean Richardson is above criticism. At the same time, he really has not done much to get heckled.

The only thing you can point to and say Richardson should have done better was in the early part of the season when the Hawks were healthy, the effort was inconsistent. Instead of addressing it, he let the players handle it with locker room meetings, but the problem still existed.

You can also make a case that Richardson should be pushing for Lukas Reichel or Arvid Soderblom to be sent to the AHL to get out of their funks. Since this is a lost season, the Hawks can be patient with those two.

Otherwise, Richardson has done what any coach tasked with a rebuild should do. He has kept the offense simple. Richardson has tried to hold inconsistent players accountable with his healthy scratches (see Reichel and Isaak Phillips). Most importantly, he is not trying to shoehorn players into his system like his predecessor, Jeremy Colliton.

If he was being as stubborn as Colliton, then by all means Richardson's coaching should be coming into question. The guy is trying everything he can think of to fix the Hawks' problems. Sometimes coaching just cannot overcome a lack of talent.

He is always willing to try something different.

Reichel and Taylor Raddysh have disappointed this season, but Alex Vlasic and Jason Dickinson have thrived. Soderblom has struggled mightily in the net, but Petr Mrazek is having a renaissance. The team has not won on the road since November. The team has also been banged up so badly since that month, that it is hard to win even at home.

The best part about Richardson is he is a former player, so understands exactly what these players are going through. He knows that he does not need to bag skate them all the time after a bad game. Sometimes a mental break is all that is needed.

If the team was in revolt or tuning him out, then we would have a problem. They are skating hard after being inconsistent to start the season. Soderblom's work with goaltending coach Jimmy Waite has seems to be working out too.

Sure, the locker room is frustrated with the lack of scoring, but no one is pointing fingers. The quotes after the game show a team that understands it is them that need to score, not the coach.

Most importantly, Richardson is trying to place a locker room culture of doing things the right way. Did we mention he is not forcing the team to play a very specific way like Jeremy Colliton?

That is why Richardson is the perfect coach to lead this team through the rebuild. Once more of the prospects start to show up on the Hawks NHL roster, then we can start to judge whether Richardson is the coach who will guide this franchise to a Stanley Cup. Until then, let the man enjoy some wine on his break.

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